Mars Bars, Metal Arms, and Matriarchs
by Pokka
Summary: They're almost to the promise land, the sliding glass doors leading to the little cafeteria glinting in the artificial light, beckoning her to the sweet, sugary goodness held within. Then, because there's always something that keeps them from their intended goal, they overhear an argument from the nurse's station.


Honestly, all she wanted was a candy bar.

There were a lot of things Quiss Shepard could deal with; losing almost everyone on Mindoir, an on-going fear of thresher maws after Akuze, indoctrinated matriarchs, rogue spectres, dying, being brought back to life, collectors, reapers, dying (again), losing an arm and a leg and more friends than she can count and...okay, well, maybe she couldn't deal with all of that but the best she could do was pretend like everything was alright until she could sort it out later.

Luckily, there was one thing she couldn't deal with but _could_ do something about without having a breakdown, and it was the shitty hospital food.

"Are you sure the nurse said you could get out of bed?" Garrus asks for the umpteenth time as the pair exits the elevator, a strange mix of worry and amusement lacing in his subvocals. "He's been pretty adamant about you not getting up except for your physical therapy."

Shepard snorts, fully aware of how her nurse liked to jump down her throat every time she so much as got up to pee, and her grip on his arm tightens, her leg threatening to give out. "Well, maybe his precise words were more along the lines of, 'please don't call in your crew- the last time they were here we had to replace four rooms and a nurse's station', but it wasn't a _no_."

Garrus chuckles, his mandibles fluttering into a turian grin, and she can't help but to laugh along with him, despite the shooting pains her prosthetic's nerve-stims send up her leg. Her fingers dig in a little tighter, bunching the fabric of his civilian shirt in her fist. She knows he notices, but he doesn't comment, and for that she is thankful.

"So, why come to the cafeteria? I've had their food, and I doubt it's better than what you're getting in your room."

"I have hope their levo food will be better than their dextro."

"I should hope so," he says haughtily, his talons clicking softly against the polished marble. "I'd hardly count half a bowl of stale dextro nuts to be sufficient nourishment."

Quiss laughs, stumbling as her metal foot tangles with her real one, and Garrus stops to allow her to catch her balance again. "To be fair, I don't think a Kit Kat is 'sufficient nourishment' either, but if I have to eat another bowl of slop I'm going to scream."

"It can't be _that_ bad."

"Look, I don't know what they give out in turian hospitals, but I can guarantee that it's better than what I'm getting here." She says matter-of-factly, her stomach churning at the mere thought of the sorry excuse of food that they try to give her. Sure, N-school trained her to put survival first and simple luxuries like taste last, but frankly, she's not currently fighting for her life and the _least_ they could do for the _savior of the galaxy_ was give her a damned cheese burger.

Knowing how mouthy her nurse was, though, she was surprised he hasn't tried to tell her that the reapers took out all the cows and now they were running on a beef deficiency. Then again, he did seem to have a sense of self-preservation, seeing as he hadn't brought up the war or even her fame in the few weeks she'd been under his care, unlike some of the other staff, who so _loved_ to bring up every publicly known trauma she's suffered- god, someone needs to teach them better bedside manners.

Shepard and Garrus round the the corner, leaving behind the hallway with the elevators, coming into sight of the glass encased cafeteria and- there! Shining like a beacon of hope in the otherwise colorless and sterile wasteland, sat the beautiful line of vending machines. She almost swooned at the sight. She wants to run, sprint, hell, _walk_ at a normal pace so she can get to the damned machines quicker and get the taste of over-processed, under-flavored garbage out of her mouth.

As if he could sense her eagerness, Garrus untangles his arm from her iron grasp and instead wraps it around her torso, his three fingered hand large enough to span her ribcage, and he lifts her up as he takes one large step forward, that one step taking the same space eight of hers would have. He sets her back down, allowing her to moment to regain her footing, his chuckle low and warm in her ear as she tries to bolt again for the promise of real chocolate.

"Easy, easy." He murmurs, endless amusement a constant undercurrent in his voice. "We'll get your junk food in a minute."

"The only junk food I've been getting is the shit _they_ give me." She says, silently enjoying the look of discomfort on the face of a passing nurse. Normally she wasn't one to cause undue trouble to most people, if she could help it, but she was going stir crazy being locked up in this damned place. It's like the doctors kept making up reasons to keep her here- wanting to monitor her cybernetics, to keep a constant eye on her vitals, to try to shove some psychiatrist down her throat because 'talking it out' is supposed to help her...she could go on. Part of her, the endlessly paranoid part, keeps thinking it was on some sort of command from Alliance brass, that Hackett or someone even higher up wanted her to stay confined until they could make better use of her.

The fact that Hackett continues to flood her omnitool with messages and sends Kaiden to pester her about coming back into active duty is the only thing that holds those thoughts at bay.

They're almost to the promise land, the sliding glass doors leading to the little cafeteria glinting in the artificial light, beckoning her to the sweet, sugary goodness held within.

Then, because there's always something that keeps them from their intended goal, they overhear an argument from the nurse's station.

"Ma'am, please-" the nurse says with measured patience, a datapad in one hand and the other propped up on her hip.

An asari shakes her head, her hands gripping the counter so hard her knuckles turn a pale blue. "No, I know my daughter is here, and I need to see her." She turns her head slightly, eyes closed against some unseen pain, her jaw working as the gold markings traveling over her face and crest shimmer. Her voice breaks as she whispers, "Please." And Shepard turns to stone in Garrus's arms.

The nurse shakes her head with a sigh and scrolls through the datapad, noisily chewing on her bubblegum as she does so. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but we don't have any asari patients." She tosses the datapad on the desk with a clatter, and for a moment her face softens, remembering that they're all living in the aftermath of an almost-successful galactic-wide genocide. "Maybe you can try Valley Memorial downtown, I'm pretty sure they have alien in-patients-"

" _My daughter isn't asari,_ " she snaps, slamming her hands against the counter with a sharp smack, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

The sound of the woman's hands against the marble countertop seems to shake Shepard from her dazed state, and she stumbles away from Garrus, absently batting away his hands as they reach for her. Her own hands shake, her breathing sped up slightly and her shoulders are tense. She tilts her head in an almost childish fashion as she says, "Mom?"

The asari whips around so fast she almost gives _Garrus_ whiplash. Her hands clap over her mouth as she takes in Shepard, the tears in her eyes overflowing to stream down her cheeks. She staggers forward a few steps, and she reaches out with shaking fingers. "Quiss?"

Then, it's more like pressing play on a long-paused vid, and Shepard's throwing herself forward, staggering as her leg threatens to buckle beneath her but she doesn't pay it any mind, not allowing it to slow her down until she's there and her arms wrap around the asari's neck. Only then does she allow herself to collapse into the woman's arms, sobbing all the while.

The asari snakes her arms around Shepard's middle, sinking down to the sterile floor as they both weep openly, Shepard's face buried in her neck as the asari cradles her head as if she were holding a baby.

Meanwhile, Garrus hangs back, his hands still hovering mid-air and his mouth open in shock. Something about the whole scene isn't computing in his brain, partly because he just doesn't have a clue who the hell this woman is or why Shepard's calling her _mom,_ and partly because she simply never mentioned any asari other than the ones he already knew. Frankly, he's kind of hurt by the thought of Shepard keeping something like this from him. Hell, she told him all about Mindoir, about Akuze, even...even about what she went through above Alchera, three things he knew to be off limits to anyone else, and yet…

"Oh, Quiss. Oh, baby." The asari coos into Shepard's flame of hair, nuzzling her cheek against the silky mess that was, for once, out of it's usual Alliance-regulated bun and falling down over her shoulders, getting tangled in the hood of her worn N7 jacket and her, ah, _mother's_ hands. "I was so scared I lost you."

Shepard sniffles, shaking her head a bit as she hugs the woman closer. "Never. Never ever." She says firmly, and damn if it doesn't sound as if she'd live forever. Hell, maybe she will. She's the only person in the damned galaxy to have come back from the dead, not once, but twice. It wouldn't surprise anyone if she lived forever out of pure stubbornness alone. "I heard about Ma." She whispers, a fresh wave of tears chasing her words. "I'm so sorry I couldn't save her."

The asari pulls back at that, taking Shepard's face in her hands and swiping at her tears with her thumbs. "No, don't you _dare_ blame yourself for that." She says, hundreds of years worth of authority bleeding into her tone, but there's a sadness there too, the soul deep ache of someone who has lost the other half of themself, and could only be recognized by someone who's been in the exact position. Garrus remembers painfully well what it was like both times Shepard died, remembered the emptiness and the way every part of him ached with invisible pains, and that's when it strikes him how obvious it was that the asari had lost someone. The golden markings, and their design, was that of someone in mourning- an old tradition from Thessia that he'd nearly forgotten about, if not for the similar one on Palaven, in which a turian would outline their colony markings in bright, shimmering blue.

Both times he had gone to the Mourner still haunt him, and he hopes he never has to go again.

"I could've done _something_ ," Shepard hisses vehemently, her fingers wrapping around the asari's slim wrists, the metal of her left hand a stark contrast to the woman's deep blue skin. "I was _there,_ mom." She says, voice cracking with a million hairline fractures stemming from one too many lost comrades and friends and family. "I was on Thessia. I could've helped. I...I could've done something, I could've-" She cuts herself off, biting down on her lip hard enough to bleed. Garrus shifts from foot to foot, wanting nothing more than to gather her up into his arms and promise that everything will be alright. Everyone knows that Thessia was a sore spot for Shepard, and he didn't think there would ever be a time where she could think of the planet without remembering her failure to kill Kai-Leng and take the Prothean VI. He didn't think there would ever be a time where she could think of Thessia and _not_ remember watching the reapers descend on the planet like vultures on a corpse.

The asari hushes Shepard, smoothing back fallen strands of red hair from her face with one hand while the other continues to wipe at the tears. Shepard calms after a moment of her mother's attentions, and the asari says, "The only thing you could have done was get yourself killed."

"But-"

"No 'but's. It was our fault for going to Thessia in the first place- we wanted to help fortify. Visryka knew the dangers just as much as I did. You and I both know she'd be proud to die trying to save the homeworld."

Ah, 'Visryka' must have been her mate. Well, that's one mystery solved, but that still didn't explain...anything else about the situation at hand.

"Besides," the asari continues, her mouth quirking into a rueful smile, "if you would have been on Thessia during the first wave like we were, you would've have been doing your job."

"My _job_ was to save innocents," Shepard says, conviction and pain and something unnamed warring in her voice. Garrus can't count how many times he's heard her say those very words, how many times she's whispered them under her breath when she thought no one could hear as she studied the galaxy map in search of the hidden catalyst.

"Your _job_ was to save the galaxy." The asari says sternly, purple eyes hard and convincing, unwavering in their trust and knowledge. "Being on Thessia any earlier than when the Alliance sent you would have meant that more people would have died elsewhere because you hadn't been there to save them." Shepard's lips thin, and her eyes drop in something akin to shame, but she doesn't argue. She knows the woman is right. Despite her failure on Thessia, going there earlier would've meant that she wouldn't have been able to help where she had.

The asari smiles gently, this time the action filled with affection rather than abject sadness, and she presses a kiss to Shepard's forehead.

"See? Everything's fine."

"You know I can't do that whole 'long-view-think-of-the-future' thing." Shepard tells her as the woman stands, capturing her hands in her own. If he didn't know any better, Garrus would say it sounded like Shepard was _whining._

The asari reaches down and carefully helps her back to her feet, the both of them stumbling a bit as Shepard leans her full weight onto the woman, forgetting that she wasn't Garrus and her weight actually felt like more than a handful of grapes to her.

"Now," she says once they're both standing, her burning violet gaze finding Garrus and taking on an almost predatory glint. "I think it's about time you introduce me to the handsome turian who's been giving you varren eyes."

Garrus feels himself blush, knowing his neck must be a condemning shade of blue. Shepard, however, shows no such signs of embarrassment and instead rolls her eyes as she limps his way, her hand like a vise on the asari's arm. " _Puppy_ eyes, mom. _Puppy_ eyes."

"That's what I said."

Once she's within reach, Shepard ever so carefully maneuvers herself off the asari's arm and back to Garrus, allowing him to wrap his arm around her waist even as she continues to hold her mother's hand in her metal one. Shepard flashes him a smile, though it doesn't quite meet the same wattage it used to and her eyes are still rimmed red. He uses the sleeve of his shirt to wipe at the smear of tears and possibly (probably) snot that has collected on her cheek, and she laughs wetly. Her hand settles on the curve of his waist as her other squeezes the asari's hand gently, "Mom, _this_ is Garrus Vakarian. Garrus, this is my mom, Lyseyra D'lara."

Garrus gives the asari, gives _Lyseyra_ a smile. His hand twitches, ready to reach out to shake her's, but her hand is trapped within Shepard's, so he lets it settle back at his side. "A pleasure to meet you."

"You as well," she says, "it's nice to finally meet the man I've heard so much about."

"I wish I could say the same about you- Shepard?" He asks, "Care to explain?"

Quiss's face flames almost as red as her hair, and Lyseyra looks to her daughter with a sort of accusing confusion, like she almost understood why he'd never heard of her but just couldn't quite get there. "Hah, yeah, about that-"

"You never told him about me?" Her gaze flicks to Garrus, "What about Visryka?" He shakes his head and then her eyes return to Shepard, a new sort of flame ignited in their depths. Her hand squeezes Shepard's almost hard enough to make the metal creak. He feels her fingers move by his waist, and when he looks, he sees her omnitool brought up in her palm. He watches with no small amount of awe as she disables the feeling receptors in her prosthetic.

Figures. Engineers are always able to find a way out of a bind.

"Well, I didn't want to put you two in any unnecessary danger, you know." She says by way of explanation, even as her mother's eyes narrow. "I mean, not to brag or anything, but there are a ton of people in the galaxy who want me dead. I don't doubt they would've tried to use you against me." The flame in Lyseyra's eyes dims to mere embers, and Shepard takes that as a sign not to push it any farther. Shepard then turns to Garrus as she says, "I wanted to tell you, I swear, but I didn't think we were close enough for me to on the SR1, and the SR2 was bugged until I gave it to the Alliance and when we finally got back together...well, we had bigger problems than my adoptive parents."

Ah, _adoptive_ parents. Why he didn't make the connection sooner, he didn't know. He looks to Lyseyra as he says, albeit a bit dubiously, "So, you and your wife took her in after Mindoir?"

Lyseyra nods, "Yes. The Alliance wanted to send her to a foster home on Earth, but Visryka worked in customs and she managed to talk them into letting her stay with us." She cuts a glance to Quiss, "Only after asking if she wanted to, of course."

"I'd never been to Earth before, and the idea of being sent to live with someone I didn't know on a _planet_ I didn't know…" Shepard shrugs, her lips quirking into some weird human shape he couldn't fathom how to do or what emotion it was supposed to express. "I'd met asari before, and they seemed nice enough. I wanted to stay in space, and I figured I could always go to Earth when I signed on with the military when I was eighteen."

Garrus nods, deciding that this, much like everything else about Shepard, is best to be taken in stride. He's sure she knows he'll want to know more later, but for now…

"Soooo," Shepard drawls, her fingers tapping an uneven rhythm on his waist, _knowing_ how sensitive the skin is there due to the lack of plating. He steels himself to keep from squirming, sucking his mandibles tight to his face in an attempt to keep his subvocals under control. Shepard may not be able to decipher _all_ of his clicks and purrs, but he knows her mom sure as hell can and he is _not_ making his first impression by getting hot and bothered by some (probably not so) innocent over the clothes action. He presses his hand over hers to lay her palm flat against his side, fingers trapped under his own, and he knows immediately by the flutter of her lashes that she did it on purpose.

Spirits save him, his neck must be bluer than Lyseyra's skin.

Garrus clears his throat, refusing to look her mother in the eye until he was sure he could talk without his blush or subvocals embarrassing him more than he would have on his own. "Didn't you want to get some chocolate?" He jerks his head toward the cafeteria and the promising line of vending machines, and he's never been more thankful for Shepard's need to run on nothing more than sugar and caffeine. Honestly, he's not sure she would have made it through chasing down Saren without a pot of coffee everyday before noon, let alone taking down the collectors and the reapers. Part of him wonders if Cerberus somehow managed to account for that made sure that her body wouldn't shut down and go into some sort of caffeine induced coma.

Her eyes light up like a turian at an armory, and then she's dropping her mother's hand and gripping onto his shirt as she tries to drag him forward. Her physical therapist was probably going to kill her _and_ him for this little excursion, but he felt that is was worth it. Garrus would give anything to keep Shepard so happy and alive, to keep her from ever looking like she did during the war- like a ghost of a person kept alive by stress and necessity- and taking a little scolding from a human a good three feet shorter than him about letting Shepard up (as if anyone _let_ her do anything, she was a natural occurrence, a force to be reckoned with, who was _he_ to stop her?) was definitely worth it. He glances down at her as the doors slide open with a hiss, his chest feeling oddly tight, his mouth suddenly dry, and, not for the first time, it hits him how absolute his love for her is.

Call him a sap, or a hopeless romantic, but Spirits damn him he loves her so much it hurts. She's incredible, intense, so resolute in everything she does it's a wonder the entire galaxy doesn't drop to their knees to worship her. She's human, through and through. They're totally different species, as unalike as a hanar to a krogan, and yet they made it work. Little more than thirty years ago, their people were locked in an all out _war_ over their differences, not even a lifetime ago, and yet here they are, proud as can be and forever unapologetic. He wishes he were as good with words as he was with calibrations, so he could fully express to her how much he means to him, how he loves her, adores her, would _die_ for her, but then she looks up at him, eyes greener than anything in this system or the next, and he can feel it in his bones how she mirrors his feelings.

It isn't one sided, not in the least, and he knows it. Knows it like how his heart knows to beat, but still there are those minuscule glimmers of doubt, those milliseconds where he questions, but he drowns them out to the steady sound of her breathing. She's alive, she's here, steady and whole in his arms and she's not going anywhere. Not without him at her side, at least, to look like the cool bad-boy boyfriend as she headbutts krogan and punches reporters.

Shepard hooks her fingers around his collar and carapace both and tugs him down to her level. Before her, he never would have thought the strange, sloppy softness of a human kiss would ever seem enjoyable, but he's yet to find many things to be better that didn't require more of that very same human softness. He nudges his forehead against hers, and pulls her along into the cafeteria, already reaching for his credit chit.

* * *

Meanwhile, Lyseyra hangs back, her hands folded in front of her as she watches the scene unfold. This Garrus Vakarian...he does, in fact, seem good enough for her little girl. She's only heard about him for _years,_ Quiss constantly talking about her crew as time went on, but only once she took control of the Normandy did her words become filled with such a warmth, and only after- after the crash of the SR1 did she begin to give special detail to a certain turian aboard her ship. Lyseyra and Visryka both had worried over such a thing. Sure, this faceless turian had stuck with Shepard through thick and thin, but even then the pair had their doubts. Not many turians, or any other species, for that matter, would be willing to follow Shepard to hell and back and they had worried of alternate motives.

Seeing them now though...her thoughts are settled. Lyseyra has only seen such unbridled love in one other gaze, and it had been in her wife's. Goddess, how she missed her, but she still had Quiss and all their other daughters. She had their children, and their children's children. She had a family. That family now seemed to include a turian, and if Quiss's last few vid-calls before the comm lines went down were of any indication, it also included a few krogan, asari, a quarian, a Prothean, an unshackled AI, and a handful of more humans. Frankly, she was perfectly fine with it.

"Mom!" Shepard's voice floats from the cafeteria. Lyseyra blinks, coming back to herself, and looks to find Garrus with one arm full of various snacks and the other still wrapped protectively around Quiss's middle. She waves her over, the polished chrome of her fingers catching the artificial light and shining like a dying star. Part of Lyseyra knows that her daughter is acting so... _carefree_ for her benefit, knows that she's still carrying the war on her shoulders, but for now, she's going to let it slide. Now was a time for peace, for love and family, and dredging up all things horrible is not a way to spend it.

So, she closes off the thoughts and memories of the war and the past, shuts them away to be dealt with at another time, and she takes a step forward into the bright and hopeful future.


End file.
